Favorites of the week: Almost a total work of art – culture

Art: Kasper König’s donation

Kasper König used a Brillo box that Andy Warhol gave him as a base for his tube television for years, then he sold it to finance an apartment. Isa Genzken dedicated two plaster casts to him and his wife Edda Köchl-König as portraits of their brains. And Richard Artschwager left a few works in König’s New York apartment after he had been allowed to live there for three years, ownership circumstances actually unclear. Such acts of friendship gave rise to the wild König Collection, from which this curator role model for generations has now given away 50 works: to the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, where he was director for twelve years, and where the pieces can now be seen until mid-March.

The unconditional art person with the fundamentally democratic heart, who strictly ensured that excessive vanity had no chance in all of his major undertakings from the “Sculpture Projects” in Münster to the Manifesta in St. Petersburg, also reflects the healthy treatment of the art world in his living room. König’s private collection is not a place for status ostentation, but, as he puts it, “somehow clever, substantial, not pretentious or self-important.” Just a portrait of his best character traits. And as such, the hall with its donation, which opened in Cologne on Friday, is a subjective biography of international art development in personal excerpts.

The exhibition organizer from the black bread belt of Westphalia, who has been presenting art for around 60 years, has still kept quiet about his most engaging feature. His tireless sense of humor is evident in the collection room. Postcards from On Kawara to König, on which he only wrote down the time he got up, hang next to Annette Wehrmann’s “Flower Splashes” or a drawing by Bernhard Blume of King Caspar as a radiant man. Anyone who has not been able to meet the original in life will get to know him at his best here and in the accompanying catalogue: funny, incorruptible, original, open and clever. Till Briegleb

Classical: Claudio Monteverdi, the Renaissance genius

A comprehensive collection of vocal and instrumental works by the Renaissance genius Claudio Monteverdi on 30 CDs. Monteverdi broke through the boundaries of his era and opened a wide path into the Baroque. While his church music is in the masterful Palestrina tradition, in his numerous madrigals he develops a school of precise language setting and an almost unique variety of expression. This gave opera, which had just been invented, a decisive boost. In contrast to the pastoral idylls and allegorical tableaux that mark the beginning of the new genre, Monteverdi conceives scenes based on a dramatic structure, gives them an individual musical language, redevelops the level of language setting, and thereby creates credible protagonists and maximum theatrical effect . Helmut Mauro

Pop: “Beatles” song “Now and Then” by Timmy Sean

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“Now and Then”, the song that Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr made with AI tricks from an old John Lennon demo tape, unfortunately doesn’t really resonate Beatles – too modern, too clean, too 1971 ff. “Now And Then (1964 Version)” is shockingly real, a prank by the American musician Timmy Sean, posted online a few days ago. For his interpretation, he did not use Lennon’s vocals, but rather sang the melody himself and then adapted it to Lennon’s voice with the help of AI. The accompaniment is a note-for-note pastiche of the “A Hard Day’s Night” era. And it all sounds so much more real and beatier and more discovered-in-an-old-chest than the song of the real remaining Beatles that your head almost wants to burst. Incredible. Max Fellman

Architecture: Fritz Auer’s life journey

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Trying to fight viral hepatitis with a bottle of rum was definitely the wrong idea. And so Fritz Auer, in his late twenties, on his world trip in Khajuraho, in the middle of nowhere in India, finally lay down with the water buffaloes in a puddle-soaked meadow: “Completely apathetic, I lay down next to the huge black animals and felt my end approaching.”

Less than a decade later, the still very young architect Auer became one of the key designers for the 1972 Olympic complex in Munich. Fritz Auer received the news that previously little-known architects from the Behnisch office had won this competition in a spectacular way in Stuttgart a few years after his trip around the world. On a Friday the 13th.

Looking back, one could say: The young Indian who helped Auer out of the puddle and ensured that the German architect was taken to the hospital in Bhopal, 370 kilometers away, is one of the titans to whom the world owes the iconic tent roof as an architectural sensation . It’s nice that a passage is dedicated to this young man in the chapter “1960 – Around the World in 113 Days”.

But Fritz Auer’s recently published book “My Journey as an Architect” (Allitera Verlag, 269 pages, 25 euros) is also a veritable cornucopia of stories, reports, thoughts and even adventures. Biographical, architectural, experienced and imagined things combine to create a great read, in which you not only learn a lot about Fritz Auer, but also something about building in theory and practice – and a Germany that is more certain about the future was than today. We have to thank the Auer, calm water buffaloes and empathetic Indians.

A life journey does not emerge from every life, but that of Fritz Auer, who has been 90 since the summer, does. He is one of the most important designers of post-war modern architecture, has seen the world, built large parts of it – and he simply has something to tell. This book is a grab bag full of architecture, urban architecture, building history and lived utopianism that hides a secret. It’s revealed in the book: It’s possibly being grounded that lets you fly. Gerhard Matzig

Talk format: “The Last Drink”

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The now 86-year-old pop singer Roberto Blanco was recently asked in interviews not only about the topics of happiness, dance and love of life, but also about racism. Also in the promising first broadcast of “The Last Drink”, a new talk format from RBB for the ARD media library, the topic plays a role. Anna Dushime conducts the discussions in a dimly lit bar atmosphere. And because the constellation between her and Blanco here is one that has almost never existed on German television, the interviewer and interviewee also talk about being black. Blanco doesn’t even want to talk about it. The gap between him, born in Tunis in 1937, and her, in Kigali in 1988, could hardly be greater. The conversation still works because Dushime’s attitude is consistent with Blanco’s indignation, but she still remains friendly. You have to do that first. Aurelie by Blazekovic